Grey
by GenesisArclite
Summary: As Lightning leaves the temple in the Wildlands for the last time, her old enemy appears to bestow upon her an odd gift: his sword. [one-word prompt series]


_**Grey**_

Lightning retraced her steps through the chaos-choked darkness of the temple in relative silence. No fiends came from the chaos this time, and everything had fallen very quiet. Sickly green light lit her path, while ghostly steps rippling with checkerboard patterns, summoned by the seeress, allowed her to travel comfortably between the various levels of the temple. In a few more minutes, she would be out in the sunshine again.

And away from this place of memory.

Memories that clung like cobwebs to her bones.

As she made her way down the steps to the huge atrium littered with broken stones, the one she had fallen from when her old enemy had appeared before her the first time, the air grew chilly and the scent of the chaos became stronger. Feeling a flicker of anxiety, she stopped and looked around, reaching for her sword and clamping her fingers around it, but not pulling it free just yet. She narrowed her eyes, scanning the shadows, but all that greeted her was rubble and pools of pitch darkness.

 _He roared in her face, anger flaring in his eyes, and easily backhanded her right through a wall in the side of one of the many buildings scattered around the empty city. She flew through empty air and collided with a pillar so hard that it cracked in half and fell atop her when she landed, making her scream–_

Shaking her head, she banished the memories from her mind. The chaos had to be _thick_ with memories of their long war. She would have to be careful.

"Lightning."

The strong, smooth voice that called out to her was unmistakable, sending goosebumps creeping across her skin, but though she tightened her grip, she still didn't raise her sword, reminding herself that he had made no indication of further hostility toward her after their final battle – strange, after all this time, that he would end it himself.

"Is that you, Caius?" She frowned. "Why come down here?"

He appeared in a wisp of darkness a short distance from her, silhouetted by pale light and pitch darkness, shadowing his eyes so that she could not see them properly. Uneasy, she took a step back.

"Don't bother being alarmed," he said, sounding faintly amused. "I don't come to harm you."

"Forgive me for thinking otherwise."

The light shifted across his hair as he shook his head. "It is understandable."

She chewed the inside of her bottom lip for a moment before looking at him with her head tipped slightly. "What do you want?" she said, though it didn't come out as a demand, merely as a curiosity. He had made it very clear that she had no reason to seek him out and that her journey would be pointless, and yet he had left the throne room to come to this atrium once more and approach her.

"You still have a long journey ahead of you, and there are twists in your path you can't anticipate," he said. "I would like to provide you with a way of facing the unexpected." He hesitated, then added, "If you'll take it."

Her hand left her sword. "I might. What is it?"

With slow, graceful movements, no doubt meant to avoid startling her, drawing her gaze, he raised both hands before him and drew between them a wisp of shadow. He closed them, and between his palms appeared the black silhouette of his vicious-looking greatsword, resting on its tip on the stone. Lightning felt a shudder at the sight, knowing the pain it could inflict, remembering how many times he had come after her with it.

 _He forewent any semblance of honor in favor of brute force and fast, strong movements that almost brought her to her knees from the force of the blows_.

Again, she banished the memories, shaking her head, and stared where his eyes should have been.

Caius moved one hand off the sword, then held it out to her, grip-first, in the other, arm fully extended, making no other movements. She stared at him, wanting to laugh, wanting to gape, thinking that he _had_ to have lost his mind if he would even _think_ of offering his sword to her. It was _his_ , stained with his aura, his Eidolith housed in the grip, and it carried a piece of his storm-like heart within its chaotic shape.

But when she really looked at his eyes, she realized she _could_ see them, and they were serious, emotionless, and she knew that he would withdraw if she declined.

And she also knew that he was offering it to her, expecting nothing in return.

She reminded herself that he had no more need of it, no more use for a sword intended for great battles, and moved close enough to take the grip in her hand. As she drew the sword toward her, he let it slide out of his grip until it was completely free, and then he let that hand return to his side.

She hefted it, finding the unusual weight balance strange in her hand, but it felt sturdy.

"Let it be a guardian to you, rather than an instrument of war as it had been for me for far too long." His voice had softened, gliding through the air as though borne on the wind, like silk to her ears, and she figured that he had to be manipulating the chaos to generate the effect as she looked at him and nodded.

When he kept gazing at her, she shivered again. "What?"

His gaze was completely steady, remaining fixed on hers, but his eyes–

 _Blazing with anger, with bitterness, with hatred and bloodlust, his eyes gave her a direct window to his stormy soul as he hacked through her army of beasts toward her. She was already tired from a lengthy battle before this, but he just kept coming, revived to full whenever he rose from the dead_.

"Caius?" she said, more quietly this time.

To her surprise, he chuckled softly, his gaze falling from hers to the stone underfoot. "A few changes in the timeline, and our meeting could have been so very different. Who can tell what might have happened then?" This time, when he looked at her, the intensity of his gaze made her knees tremble. Something in those too-deep eyes made her feel laid bare and vulnerable before him, and she wasn't sure how to react to it.

 _He laughed at her, but it was drenched in bitterness, and she punched him in the face just to shut him up, putting all the weight of her body into the blow, sending him across the beach_.

Though she knew better than to ask, she did it anyway. "What are you not telling me?"

He smirked, but before she could understand all the many emotions behind it, he vanished in a sigh and flicker of shadow. Lightning reached out, briefly, toward where he had been, suddenly realizing that she had a thousand things to say and none of them made it to her lips.

She wanted to tell him how angry she was at him, how much she despised how thoughtlessness, how bitter she was at the sight of her sister slumping to the ground, lifeless, but the words didn't come. There was nothing more to say to Caius Ballad that he hadn't already told himself, nothing he didn't already know. He would stay, and she would never see him again. It would have to be that way, and the words would go unsaid.

There wasn't much point to fighting this war anymore.

 _But they won't let me die. Instead, I must haunt these halls, a corpse living a life bereft of meaning_.

Perhaps staying behind would give him a purpose.

Lightning stared at the sword in her hand a moment, turned, and left the hundred thousand bitter memories to the darkness of eternity, where they belonged.

* * *

 _Wondering how Lightning may have gotten Caius's sword is what led to this idea. Perhaps he gave to her as a gesture of goodwill. Perhaps it was out of simple practicality (what need has he for it anymore, after all?). Maybe he was trying to tell her something in his own unique way. We may never know._


End file.
